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And do not forget that, in the mind that is even fairly well trained, these pictures flash up with incredible rapidity. I know that in my own mind, as in the instance just cited, six or seven pictures will often occur, and I will select the one which it seems appropriate to mention, within the few seconds that ordinarily intervene between a remark and the reply to it. Association and Memory. In an earlier paragraph I told you that proper association of ideas practically insured power of memory.

Clever child! 52 Now my remark was made without any conscious effort of mind whatever—without any striving or deliberate action of the will. It was entirely subconscious and effortless. Afterward I amused myself by tracing out exactly what my mind had done when the child asked that question. " Out of this analysis I selected the idea "apple" and upon this based my extension. " Then in rapid succession there came into my mind memories of: the apple that William Tell is said to have shot off the head of his son; "apples of gold in pitchers of silver" mentioned in the Bible; the "apple of Sodom," the fruit of the other tree, which is beautiful externally but filled with a kind of ashes—therefore often used as a symbol for disappointment; the apples of the Hesperian field, said to be guarded by the four mystic sisters—the Hesperides; the apple for which Paris ran his race.

But one day a man with a great imagination saw that commonplace thing. His imagination seized upon it, and he propounded Newton's theory of the law of gravitation, one of the most important achievements in the whole history of human thought. Another man sees his mother's teakettle boiling. He observes that the lid is raised by the expanding steam. His great imagination starts from this homely detail; and he gives to the world—the steam engine. Napoleon, poor, obscure, hungry, trudging up and down the streets of Paris in search of employment, dreams of making all Europe one vast empire—his empire.